This is how it works. I don't look back. I file. I'm done. It's a strange feeling to dart toward the next column, asking "What's next?" knowing that by the time the first column reaches you it's faded behind me as I chase the next.

Two days later, I'm standing against the rail at the roller-skating rink at Oaks Park, text messaging a 24-year-old heroin addict. And as my legs go numb, I realize that we never really know what's next.

I watch the young children skate in circles. My 9-year-old is among them, with her friends, and I wave as they go past. Every few minutes, my cell phone lights up with a new message from "R," who tells me that he was on his way Friday to score dope when he got hit over the head with Herren's story.

"R" was a heroin addict for three years. He said he quit June 4, 2011 and stayed clean. Before this week, I'd always imagined a heroin addict as filthy, jumpy, with a pair of shifty slits for eyes, making a buy under the bridge or on a corner. I've had it all wrong. As Herren said in the column, that's the sad, desperate, drooling image of an addict in his final days.

Plus, "R" tells me of heroin, "You have to know someone who sells it. It's not on the street corners like in 'The Wire.' At least not in Oregon."

Things have been tough for "R" lately. He had a bumpy ride as a child, and was raised by his grandmother. She's 98 now, broke her hip, and her health is deteriorating. Doctors recently gave her only a few weeks to live. And with this news, and his world crumbling around him, "R" did something foolish.

He said: "I relapsed."

"R" is a student at Oregon State, and first tried heroin after he turned 20. He can't get the drug in Corvallis, so he drives to Portland to get high with some friends who have been doing it for years. After the recent relapse, his best friend, and main support through sobriety, got fed up and stopped talking to him.

"I've been using since," he said.

Friday's column on Herren's plan to talk with the Oregon football team about his drug addiction ran, and you wrote me. You told me how moved you were by Herren's courage. You told me how proud you were that Ducks coach Chip Kelly saw the value in slipping Herren quietly into town to address his team about how he'd gone from NBA draft pick to junkie, pawning his children's toys for drug money.

One email came from a father, who arrived home on Friday evening from work to find his 10-year-old son with the Sports section spread out before him.

Wrote Scott Shamrell: "He is drawn to anything having to do with Ducks football, but often time will lose interest once the players are no longer being talked about. But this was different. He was captivated, reading and re-reading sentences to make sure he understood the story being told."

The column raised big questions for the kid, of course. It ignited a sobering discussion about drugs and addiction between father and son. But the dad pointed out how pleased he was that his son felt as though the conversation was on his terms. And in that, I realize that Herren hadn't yet arrived in Oregon to tell his story, but already his message had landed.

"R" reads The Oregonian all the time, but he'd missed seeing the column in the newspaper. He did, though, climb into his car in Corvallis on Friday and drive toward Portland, trying to "score dope." I was determined to air Herren's taped interview on my radio show. I'd slotted it for early afternoon, but the Ducks released those redacted files relating to their NCAA investigation.

The interview got pushed back, and further back, with listeners wanting to talk about the Ducks' potential NCAA punishment, until ultimately, I decided I'd better just air the thing or forget it altogether. And so fate ran into "R" just after 4p.m. Friday as he was speeding north on Interstate 5 toward Portland to buy his heroin and get lost for the weekend.

I'm often asked whether I enjoy writing the column more or doing the radio show, or even television. I was a columnist first, but I do all three, and love them. This is where this journalism business has taken me. I'm a story teller with opinions. Whether I tell that story and give those opinions on radio, or in print, or in 90 seconds on television, I'm reminded by an occasion such as this that what matters most isn't the forum, but the story.

Because "R" happened to catch the Herren interview as he drove. He heard Herren, now 36, talk about being drafted, and losing his life to drugs. He heard the former NBA guard talk about scoring crack cocaine, and being unable to get out of bed while with this Celtics without using Oxycontin. He heard Herren say, "This doesn't have to be a life sentence, or a jail sentence. ... Beating this can be done, one minute at a time."

"R" had tears in his eyes as he listened. He hung on every word, just like that 10-year-old boy. And this is right about where "R" reached out, got my contact information, and sent that first message. "I'm turning around and going home and giving my wallet to my roommate and going to an AA meeting," he wrote. "Something happened to keep me sober today."

On Saturday, while I watched the children skate, "R" texted an update. He'd made it through Friday sober. He was back in Corvallis, where he explained there was no chance he'd get high. "I'm in a good situation where I can't mess up," he said, as if proximity to heroin is the sole factor in keeping him off it.

I wonder today if "R" realizes the power in what he's done here. Herren, too. The 10-year-old and his father, as well. Maybe you, too, if you were moved by Herren's story. We never really know what comes next, do we? But for one day, one minute at a time, the addict who talks about himself as if he's a powerless pawn, performed a U-turn that has the power to lift us all.